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For every politician, the events of their past influence their political career and the person they are.
But for Joe Biden, the story is particularly poignant.
The 77-year-old was embarking on his journey into politics when his life was irretrievably changed by the death of his wife and daughter.
That moment in 1972 would not only change the would-be president’s personal life, it would influence the way he behaves on the public stage.
Who was Joe Biden’s first wife?
Biden met Neilia Hunter in 1963 on Nassau Beach during spring break, when she was a sophomore at Syracuse University and he was a junior at the University of Delaware.
After his bachelor’s degree, Biden moved to Syracuse to attend law school and the couple married in 1966 while he was still studying there.
After graduation, they moved to Wilmington in Delaware, where he practiced law and won a seat on the New Castle County Council in 1970.
Biden’s first wife Neilia and their daughter Naomi are buried alongside their eldest son Beau Biden, who died of cancer in 2015, in a cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware. (Getty)
The couple went on to have three children: Beau and Hunter and their daughter Naomi, whom they nicknamed Amy.
In 1972, Biden ran for a Delaware seat in the United States Senate, and his wife played a key role in his campaign.
They were successful, and in November of that year, Biden, then 30, won the seat from Republican incumbent J Caleb Boggs.
How did Joe Biden’s wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi die?
Just weeks after his election, while Biden was in Washington DC interviewing people for work in his new office, he received a phone call that would change his life forever.
While on Christmas shopping, Biden received a phone call telling him that Neilia and Naomi, who was only 13 months old, had died in a car accident. Hunter and Beau, who were four and three years old, were in critical condition.
Speaking about the tragedy in a speech at Yale in 2015, Biden described the moment he took that call.
“Six weeks after my election, my whole world changed forever,” he said. “While I was in Washington hiring, I received a phone call. My wife and three children were Christmas shopping, a truck with a trailer hit them and killed my wife and killed my daughter. And they weren’t sure my children would live. “
During a campaign speech in 2008, Biden also spoke openly about seeing his children in the hospital after the accident.
How did the death of your wife and daughter affect Joe Biden’s career?
The death of Neilia and Naomi would determine the direction of Biden’s political career.
His induction into the Senate took place at his children’s bedside in the hospital and he went on to commute from Washington to Delaware to spend time with his children, earning the nickname ‘Amtrak Joe.’
During his speech at Yale, he said: “I started traveling thinking that I would only stay for a little while, four hours a day, every day, from Washington to Wilmington, which I have done for more than 37 years.
“I did it because I wanted to be able to kiss them good night and kiss them in the morning the next day … But, looking back, the truth is that the real reason I went home every night was that I needed more to my children. than they needed me. “
Biden described his focus on his children as his “redemption.” Beau died of a brain tumor in 2015 in another tragedy that affected the family.
Biden married his current wife Jill in 1977. (Getty)
In his 2017 book “Promise Me, Dad,” Biden wrote that “the pain … seemed excruciating at first, and it took me a long time to heal, but I survived the ordeal. I made it through, with a lot of support, and rebuilt my life and my family ”.
The Democrat, who married his current wife Jill in 1977, has described how his own experiences have helped him connect with voters who have been through a similar tragedy.
In an interview with MSNBC, he said: “You would be surprised how many people come to me. I mean hundreds of people over time. They will hug me, men and women, and they will say:” I just lost my son, I just lost my father, I just lost my wife. “And all they want to know is that you’ll make it.”
